The potential of knitting fbr engineering composites - a review

Current literature on knitted composites tends to address the aspects of manufacture and characterisation separately. This paper aims to bring together these two sets of literature to provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the subject of knitted composites. Consequently, this paper contains a detailed outline of the current state of knitting technology for manufacturing advanced composite reinforcements. Selected mechanical properties of knitted composites, and some of the predictive models available for determining them are also reviewed. To conclude, a number of current and potential applications of knitting for engineering composites are highlighted. With a comprehensive review of the subject, it is believed that textile engineers would be able to better understand the requirements of advanced composites for knitting, and, by the same token, composites engineers can have a better appreciation of the capability and limitations of knitting for composite reinforcement. This should lead to more efficient usage and expanded application of knitted composites. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.